Colombia moves to dismantle domestic spy agency

BOGOTA — After a wiretapping scandal, Colombia’s domestic spy department will be dismantled and a new agency will be set up to focus on intelligence and counterintelligence work involving national security, the nation’s spy chief said Friday.

Felipe Munoz Gomez said the majority of the current agency’s 6,000 employees will be transferred to the criminal investigative unit of the police and other investigative bodies.

On Thursday, President Alvaro Uribe said for the first time that he favored eliminating the DAS spy agency. Uribe previously talked of the need to restructure the troubled department.

The DAS has been snarled in controversy over accusations that it used wiretaps to spy on government critics, judges and journalists. Uribe’s government, the United States’ main ally in South America, denied ordering the taps.

“We will present next week before the Congress of Colombia legislation seeking extraordinary powers for the president to eliminate the present structure of the (Administrative Security) Department,” Munoz said at a news conference in his office.

He said a new department will take over intelligence and counterintelligence.

The domestic spy agency was created in 1953 during the government of Gen. Gustavo Rojas Pinilla and reconstructed as the DAS by President Alberto Lleras Camargo in 1960.

The wiretapping scandal, involving the alleged illegal pursuit of human rights activists, reporters and magistrates of the Supreme Court of Justice, was not the first scandal for the agency.

Uribe’s first DAS director, Jorge Noguera, is in prison awaiting trial on charges including murder for allegedly helping right-wing death squads target union leaders.